Failure Of Leadership: Reflective Analysis Essay.

Discuss about the Failure of Leadership.

Leaders can be defined as the individuals who take on the responsibility of guiding a group of subordinates in order to help them meet the objectives of organizations. The leaders influence and encourage the subordinates in ways by which they can effectively overcome different barriers that come in their ay and reach their goals (Hill & Bartol, 2016). Leaders are responsible for helping them realize their potential and make them work beyond their capacity to reach the zenith of success. One of their main weapons is their potential to motivate the employees that help them to overcome different stress and help them deliver their best work (Hojat et al., 2015). Researchers are of the opinion that in order to develop leadership skills, every individual need to reflect regularly  on both their positive and negative traits (Saeed et al., 2017). This would help strengthen their positive aspects, overcome different barriers, and modify their negative traits to provide guidance that helps every organization to achieve their mission and vision (Priest & Gass, 2017). This assignment will reflect how failed leadership situation helped me to enhance my skills of communication and team management skills helping me for preparing myself for a bright future.

The first step of Gibbs reflective cycle is the description of the event. During the placement months, I was assigned the position of a team leader to manage a team of about eight people. I was given an assignment to complete within an assigned date. I called each of the individual of the team and allocated their respective task. One of the members tried to provide me a suggestion stating that rather than assigning one piece of work to one member. I should allocate one place of work to two members that would reduce the chances of failing to meet the deadlines. I did not listen to him completely and cut him out stating that since I am the leader, my orders need to be adhered to. I tried to be very strict with them so that they do not waste their time in gossiping and not doing their work. I did not allow anyone to talk with each other on the floor to maintain discipline. One of the members could not submit me the work and missed the deadline that I had given her. I could not control my anger and shouted on her following which she never continued me directly on the floor. Moreover, when one of the members came to me and asked me that he was not able to complete their work due to personal issues, I blamed him stating that these are all excuses that he was making for not completing the work. The next day he put forward a resignation letter that made me quite nervous. I became so nervous that I lost my confidence and could not manage the team effectively. Moreover, there arose many situations where huge fights took place between the subordinates where each blamed each other for failure of completion of work. All these resulted in the failure of the assignment and my mentor severely criticized me.

Evaluation

The second step mainly says what the individuals was feeling and thinking during the incidences. When I was given the responsibility to complete the assignment with the help of teamwork, I thought that if I have to make the work complete successfully, I need to be quite strict with the subordinate. I thought, if I allow them to communicate and interact on the floor, they would spend most of the time of the day in informal interactions that may result them in failing to meet the requirement. I also thought that they are making excuses as they had wasted their time and required more time to complete the work. I thought if I allow them more time, the assignment will not be completed within time and would thereby fail. The pressures of meeting the deadlines made me nervous and therefore I shouted in anger on the individual who came to me for help. I could not control my emotions that time. I became quite nervous when one of them submitted his resignation, as I could not understand what mistake I had made that resulted in taking him such a big decision. The failure of the entire project made me quite upset and I felt both confused and upset about the reasons that had resulted in failure of the teamwork.

The third step of the cycle is the evaluation stage that mainly involves stating what was good and bad about experiences. Many negative factors were associated with the incident. Due to my improper leadership, the subordinates develop a very negative feeling about me. They developed a feeling that I was rude and they decided never to work under my guidance. This created a very negative image of mine that affected my career. Such negative image in the very beginning of my career had the potential to affect my future prospects. Moreover, I lost my self-confidence entirely and could not gain courage to overcome the negative vibes that I was receiving. My mentor who had trust on me and provided me with the opportunity to exhibit my leadership trait was also very upset about the bad performance that I had put forward. I felt very sad for letting down his expectations. However, the positive aspect of the incident was that this incident helped me to realize that my leadership traits were not up to the mark and I do not have proper knowledge about how to manage a team and lead a team towards success. Therefore, it helped me to realize that I need to work more on my leadership skills and team working skills so that I can become successful in my future leadership projects.

Analysis

The fourth important step is called the analysis step. This step helps individuals to make senses from the situations. After discussing with my mentors as well as after going through several research articles, I realized the mistakes that I had conducted in my leadership. I realized that I do not have proper communication skills. I am an impatient listener and I do not have effective feedback giving and listening skills. Cutting out subordinates in middle of their suggestions make them feel disrespected as they feel that they do not have power or acceptance in the organization (Chuang, Jackson & Jiang, 2016). They feel that their suggestions are not respected and this affects employee and team’s morale that in turn affects human relations. Moreover, I neither allowed the employees to communicate among them nor arranged for any meetings with effective and constructive feedback giving and receiving sessions in the team. Due to lack of effective communication and encouragement of communication from my side, bonding and relationship did not develop. Researchers are of the opinion that rapport building is one of the most importance aspects of teamwork that strengthened human relations in workplace (Kozlowski et al., 2015). The stronger the relationship between employees, the better is productivity as employees not only shared work burden but also engages in informal discussion that releases pressure (Scully, 2015). Emotional turmoil in employees can be handled effectively by proper communication that prevents burnout (Hargett et al., 2017). Besides, I also realized that I have poor emotional intelligence. I have poor self-regulation skills for which I cannot control my emotions properly. Therefore, when I became angry I could not keep myself calm and shouted on the employee that affected her self-respect. Researchers are of the opinion that individuals who have higher self regulation capability can maintain trustworthiness and integrity, openness to change and enjoy comfort with ambiguity (Hojat et al., 2015). I also did not have poor empathy for which I could not connect with the pain and emotion of the employee who could not complete the work due to personal issues. In place, I was rude with him which made him upset. He felt that the organization does not trust him and cannot pay importance to the concerns and issues he is facing. I also could not motivate and inspire them to work and my leadership trait was more autocratic than transformational. Researchers suggest that transformational leadership in the 21^st century is essential to bring out the best productivity where motivation and leading by example is most important (Carter et al., 2015). I was unnecessarily strict with them that affected their self-esteem, their morale and made them burnout easily. Therefore, they were not able to exhibit effective teamwork and even failed to meet the productivity and deadline.

The next step is called the conclusion phase where the individual needs to state what else he should have done in the incidents. I should have exhibited proper listening skills and should not have cut down the employees in midst of their suggestions. I should have been empathetic to both the employees who could not complete their work and should have tried to understand their issues and helped them in return. I should have inspired all the members to communicate with each other and arrange or meetings where I would have motivated them to work beyond their capabilities to meet the goals. I should have provided more importance to rapport building among the employees so that they can establish good bonds with each other and show effective teamwork. I should not have been strict with them and in place be friendlier with them by sharing their concerns and guiding them with the work where they were stuck. This would have led to success of the assignments (Dubrin et al., 2015).

The next step is called the action plan stages that help individuals to prepare with the action plan that they would apply if the events occur again. When I get such leadership projects form next time, the most important aspect I would pay importance to is rapport building between the employees and effective communication with the employees and among the employees. Researchers are of the opinion that rapport building enhances human relations and helps to overcome stress, pressure, anxiety and emotional turmoil (Matthews & McLees, 2015). This aspect also enhances productivity. Moreover, I will arrange for effective constructive feedback sessions every week so that employees can open up to about their concern and disclose their suggestions for each other in a constructive manner. Such sessions would help in developing relationship among the employees (Schaik et al., 2014). Moreover, I will also work on my emotional intelligence attributes so that I can emotionally connect with my subordinates and motivate them to perform the best.

From the entire discussion above, it had been easily understood the three aspects which are very important for effective teamwork and leadership helping in developing human relations at workplace. These are effective communication skills, proper rapport building in teamwork and high emotional intelligence. Every leader should develop the mentioned attributes so that they can help their subordinates meet the organization goals and reach the zenith of success

References:

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